Kent Bush: Bad guys seem to stay one step ahead

Friday

Feb 25, 2011 at 12:01 AMFeb 25, 2011 at 6:51 AM

Most legislation is like the medication advertised on television. It may solve one problem, but the potential side effects are sometimes worse than the condition the medication treats. I think it is funny that a Saudi Arabian in Texas can buy all of the materials he needs to make an explosive to threaten former President George W. Bush's home from Amazon.com, but a 17-year-old can't buy a box of Sudafed if their nose is runny.

Kent Bush

Most legislation is like the medication advertised on television. It may solve one problem, but the potential side effects are sometimes worse than the condition the medication treats.

Who wants to risk amnesia, nausea, blurred vision, muscle pain, anxiety or hallucinations just to take a pill that helps you sleep a couple of extra hours a night? I think that situation is paralleled in the well-meaning efforts to curtail methamphetamine abuse. When my wife has a cold, I stand in line at a pharmacy for 20 minutes just to get cold medicine that might actually work because some tweeker may be trying to buy 30 boxes of cold medicine to boil down in a chemistry set to make a $10 per hit life-stealing narcotic.

The same druggie that figured out that he could create meth from cold medicine also figures out that he can make it from something else when access to cold medicine is removed.

I think it is funny that a Saudi Arabian in Texas can buy all of the materials he needs to make an explosive to threaten former President George W. Bush's home from Amazon.com, but a 17-year-old can't buy a box of Sudafed if their nose is runny.

I know it is hard to outfox a fox. The bad guys always seem to stay one step ahead. They can use cell phones or even Christmas lights to ignite explosives.

It's hard to legislate against Christmas lights and cell phones.

The same is true for medications. People who want to escape reality won't stop until they find something to eat, drink, smoke, huff or inject to make them forget about life for a while.

The would-be bomber in Texas was foiled because those selling him the materials he needed reported it to the authorities.

Common sense worked where legislation never could.

Of course, if the guy would have been named Christopher Jones instead of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari I wonder how well protected the former President would have been.

I guess I shouldn't complain about minor inconveniences that protect society from drug users. After all, security at airports is ridiculous. But when you are 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, it's comforting to know that the guy in row eight doesn't have a bomb in that bag.

But the question always lingers: How far are we willing to go to feel safe?

Standing in line to buy cold medicine might be justified. But what is next?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got himself in a bit of a twist recently when a blogger called him and pretended to be David Koch - one of the biggest financial backers of the tea party movement.

When the good Governor heard Koch was on the phone, he dropped everything and got on the line for about 20 minutes.

Walker says he takes calls like that all of the time. But I bet he takes more calls from one of the brothers Koch than he would from a little old lady in Coon Valley, Wis.

One of the most troubling comments he made was when the poser told him they were considering planting troublemakers in the crowd of union supporting protesters.

"Well, the only problem, because we thought about that," Gov. Walker said, "my only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I've talked to have just completely had it with them."

They have thought about that?

Politics is not in a good place right now. There aren't many high-minded philosopher-legislators out there looking to do the right thing for constituents.

Most elected officials are involved in the us vs. them political game that helps them get re-elected but serves to prevent any real progressive legislation from being passed. Pat Buchanan was on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Thursday morning telling the world he didn't have a problem with Walker's comments.

That should come as no surprise. Buchanan still believes his old boss Richard Nixon really wasn't a crook.

Walker is no different than most in his position and that is the problem.

Elected officials bend rules and ignore ethics to get a win.

People create fake online profiles to twist perceptions. News agencies report "most' of the story to tilt their audience's opinions. Lobbyists buy votes.

"The right thing to do" is rarely a contributing factor for today's decision makers.

But I haven't given up hope yet.

No one would have believed even six weeks ago that so many oppressed people in north African dictatorships would be able to depose their leaders through the force of peaceful protests.

If I can believe they can pull that off, I might be able to conceive of a politician doing the right thing regardless of campaign donations or party affiliation.